For years, the players at Cryptograms.org have been leaving comments on quote solution pages that are often more astute, creative, hilarious, or inspiring than the quotes themselves. Here is a thread where we can save some of our favorite comments and conversations from many years of quote-commenting.

Format:

1. Always start with the quote and attribution, for context, and then paste in the comments below the quote.

2. With each comment, include the commenter's name and date/time stamp.

3. Post whatever portion of the thread that you want to include here -- it can be just one comment, or several comments, or the entire thread.

5. If you post a sequence of comments, it's okay to leave out in-between comments that aren't part of the classic moment. You know, like you can skip the "87 seconds" comment and other mundane or unrelated stuff. (Or go ahead and keep them in, if you feel they contribute to the magic of the thread.)

6. Remember, this is a place to save the wonderful stuff, not the other stuff.

To show you the format, I'll open in my next post with one of my favorite comments from Pootie (who passed away before I joined the site, but whose words delight me).

"As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words." — William Shakespeare

bvwRedux on 2012-02-16 02:11:19
And yet it hath been done, that snow is melted and stripped by marvelous electrodes into fuel and air -- hydrogen the first, and oxygen the latter -- then kindled easily, so too is lust's sudden flame easily quenched with a blanket of careful words.

Barnabas, too. He made a quip on a quote from Arthur Miller, who was speaking at Brandeis. Someone asked Miller why theater or the arts should get government grants and subsidies, when most businesses have to finance themselves. This was before the bank bailouts, I guess. To which Miller replied, and this was the quotation, can you tell me the name of a classical Greek shoemaker?

Sure, said Barnabas. There was Achilles' Heels, a mile or so from the Parthenon.

Sorry, LLapp, I've managed to violate every stipulation in your opening post, save the last. Obviously, this is from memory; one never knows when a particular quotation will strike again: tomorrow, next week, next year.

Also I have a question. You write like an editor instructing an author in matters of style. Is that -- or was it -- your career? Your talent is evident.

munchlet - That's fine, I didn't mean for the format to be rigid, and I was afraid it might be. My intent was to provide a clear basic template so people could easily take part without having to figure out how to do it. And...at the same time, I wanted to encourage a few things -- like date/time stamps (because I love how some conversations take years), and not altering the individual comments (because nobody likes to be misquoted).

That said, what you just did was fine too. I'm not in charge. It's fine.

And yes, you guessed it, I am an editor. Most recently I worked as a book editor for a tiny publishing house, and working with authors was my favorite part of the job. I love encouraging authors to engage with their work.